


Falling

by Luthien



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 08:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis doesn't care for Christmastime any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks: To Damerel for a meticulous and speedy beta and sharing her expert knowledge of Oxford with me, and to Nym for Brit-picking on demand as I went. :-)
> 
> References:  
> 1\. Set at Christmastime, post-Series 5. There's also a reference to the final episode of 'Inspector Morse'.  
> 2\. I've thrown in a few literary references, because Hathaway demanded them. To be specific: William Shakespeare, Robert Browning and Robert Burns. And to be really, really specific, if you're curious about one reference in particular, you can find the full text of Browning's 'Porphyria's Lover' [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria%27s_Lover#Full_text).

It’s dark by the time Lewis leaves the office on Friday, even though it’s still technically afternoon. He used not to mind that so much, once upon a time, but now it’s just one more thing he dislikes about December.

Mud spatters his trouser legs as he trudges out to his car. It’s been drizzling in fits and starts all day, as if the weather hasn’t been quite able to decide what to do with itself. The drizzle turns into proper rain before he reaches the car. Well, at least it’s finally made up its mind. Lewis squints into the rain, but he doesn’t bother trying to pick up his pace. That cough he’s been ignoring more or less successfully for more than a week has finally set in today, just like the rain. He can do without a coughing fit right now.

He makes it to the car, finally. He glances in the rear view mirror as he gets in, sighs – and ends up having to wait for that coughing fit to be done after all. It subsides. Eventually. He buckles his seatbelt, runs a hand through his hair to shake off the worst of the rain, and prepares for the journey home. He’s making the trip alone, since Hathaway’s still not back from Cornwall. He’s been down there the past couple of days, chasing down a possible lead on the Taynton murder while Lewis has been forced to stay in Oxford, kicking his heels and waiting for three long days to give evidence in court when he should have been out there with Hathaway hunting down possible criminals. Not that it made a blind bit of difference in the end; Lewis finally got out of court late this morning and then Hathaway phoned around lunchtime to say that all he’d found in Cornwall were dead ends and he was heading back to Oxford.

Lewis shouldn’t be surprised that Hathaway’s not back yet. It’s just that he’s got used to having Hathaway around and he’s missed him these past few days. Lewis wouldn’t have minded finishing up the week with some quiet conversation over a few pints in the pub and, well, Hathaway’s really about the only person he knows who qualifies for doing that sort of thing these days. He may not get back for hours yet, though. It’s a good five-hour drive up from Penzance, not to mention that there’s peak hour traffic to deal with, and Friday traffic, and Christmastime traffic too. And there are bound to be pile-ups on the motorway thanks to the wet and gloomy conditions and the idiots who don’t take proper care…

Lewis inhales sharply, firming his lips together in a hard line for a second before another coughing fit takes hold of him. The back of his throat is raw and aching by the time he finishes coughing this time around, and his chest aches. He should stop off at the chemist to get some cough mixture or something on the way home.

It’s turning into a miserable evening, but there are still far too many cars out on the roads and hordes of people hurrying along the streets.  Christmastime. Lewis finds a parking space not too far from the chemist’s, but still far enough. He’s blinking the rain out of his eyes and feeling as though he’s about to start shivering in earnest from the cold by the time he makes it into the warm – stiflingly warm – interior with its dazzling fluorescent lights. A dull headache starts up behind his eyes as he stares at the rows and rows of cold medications on the shelves by the counter.

Lewis hasn’t bought cough mixture in years, hasn’t needed to. He remembers, vaguely, the sort that Val used to keep in the medicine cabinet when the kids were small. He thinks it might have had a teddy bear on the label. Not that one, then. The woman at the counter gives him a tired, professional smile when he asks for cough mixture, and asks him what sort of cough it is.

Lewis stares at her blankly for a moment. “Um,” he says.

“Is it a dry cough?” she asks.

With perfect timing, the by now constant tickle in Lewis’s throat will no longer be denied, and he’s seized by another fit of coughing.

The woman frowns in something like actual concern. “Not a dry cough, then,” she says. “In that case, I’d suggest this one.” She picks out a large bottle which thankfully has only a smiling middle-aged woman pictured on the label.

“In that case, I’ll take that one,” Lewis replies, eyes watering and throat on fire, but he tries to summon up a brief smile of thanks. He grabs an umbrella from the display stand by the counter, and buys that, too. The umbrella is one of those flimsy fold-up black ones with the cheap plastic handle, rather than the sort of giant golfing umbrella that Lewis knows Hathaway keeps in the back of his car ‘just in case’. Come to think of it, he’s never seen Hathaway actually use that thing. He probably thinks that getting rained on every now and then is good for the soul, or something like that.

Out on the street, it’s even colder and wetter than it was before.  He’s grateful for the small amount of shelter that the umbrella provides. Down the street, his car is waiting, and beyond that his empty flat, with its almost empty fridge. He should get something to eat, though he’s really not feeling hungry at all. There’s an Asda just around the corner. It won’t take long to stop in there, and it’s not as if the empty flat will be wondering where he is.

The walk to the Asda is further than he remembers, or seems further. His legs feel tired before he gets there. As soon as he walks in through the supermarket doors he sees the in-store pharmacy sign over by the far wall and realises he could have got everything here without having to make a special stop for the chemist. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? The headache is making it harder and harder for him to concentrate, though, so he doesn’t waste too much time pondering the question.

Schmaltzy renditions of Christmas standards are being broadcast through the supermarket’s tinny speakers. The sound grates, hurts, as his ears take up the theme that the headache started. The walls are festooned with fake holly and mistletoe, and other plastic decorations including a giant Father Christmas complete with sleigh and reindeer dashing along one wall. Lewis never used to pay much heed to that sort of thing, but these days he can’t not notice it. He wishes they’d just dispense with it all. Not much chance of that, of course. The supermarkets seem to get the damned things out earlier every year. He’s sure these ones have been up since at least early October.

He knows where to find the ready meals, he knows that a bit too depressingly well, but as he’s making his way there he passes the alcohol aisle. He stops. Beer is one thing – maybe the only thing – that he’s definitely not short of, but his eyes stray further along the shelves to the tall, narrow-necked bottles at the far end. He made a conscious decision not to… Years ago, now. He stands there for a long moment. And then he starts walking again, but not towards the ready meals. Not immediately.

He doesn’t have to wait all that long in the queue for the self-service check-out, to his relief. His hands fumble as he packs up his few items: a chicken curry and rice ready meal for one, a bag of assorted lettuce and a bottle of brandy, all to take home to a lonely flat after a long week at work. At this rate, it won’t be long before he’s in real danger of turning into Morse. He shakes his head at himself, or starts to, then stops mid-shake.  That hurts, too. It feels as though someone’s dropped a handful of marbles into his head and now they’re all rattling around in there. He’d better take some aspirin along with the cough mixture when he gets home. He’s not going to try to deny that his annual winter cold is a bad one this year.

He walks out into the night – and starts coughing again as soon as the cold, damp air hits his lungs. A sharp pain knifes through his chest. Definitely time to get on home.

The drive back to his flat seems to take forever, and it’s not just because he feels ready to drop. There’s an accident on Between Towns Road and the traffic’s being diverted. He notices a car stopped halfway onto the crossing. Only a single car. A group of people has gathered around something lying by the side of the road. He can’t see what it is, but it’s almost certainly a person. That, or a body. A pedestrian? He’s waved off to the side road by a very young constable in a green fluoro hi-vis vest, who looks vaguely familiar. He could stop and ask. Check. But Lewis’s fingers tighten against the steering wheel and he just keeps going.

He always keeps going. He doesn’t know how to do anything else.

It’s freezing cold inside the flat when he finally makes it home. The heating timer is on the blink again. He fiddles with the settings but the thing stubbornly refuses to turn on. Maybe the boiler’s finally given out, despite the fact that the gas fitter swore it was fixed last time. There’s a contact number for the gas company somewhere. He should call them tonight, see if someone can come round to look at the boiler in the morning. There’s not a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting anyone to come out this late, particularly on a Friday barely more than a week before Christmas. Bloody perfect.

He shrugs out of his coat and goes through to the bedroom, stopping to toss the semi-folded umbrella into the bath on the way. He digs out the small fan heater from the bottom of the wardrobe. It’s not much but it’s about all that’s standing between him and hypothermia tonight. He sets it up directly in front of the settee. The exertion sets him to coughing again, and he’s dizzy after bending over.

He fetches aspirin from the bathroom cabinet. The water’s cool relief on his aching throat as he swallows the tablets down. A measure of cough mixture follows, sickly sweet and sticky. He feels slightly better for it, though, and unpacks the food.

The violent – Hathaway would probably just say “vile” – yellow-orange of the curry stands out in stark contrast against the shiny dark counter top. Lewis can’t imagine eating it, now or ever. Next to it, there’s condensation forming inside the bag of lettuce. The lettuce leaves look a bit wilted. He’s not even sure why he bought them, apart from some vague idea of giving himself a choice of foodstuffs. He breaks open the bag and pokes about until he finds a small leaf of iceberg lettuce. It’s crunchy and bland as bland can be, and after he eats half of it he knows he’s finished with food for the evening.

He gets a glass from the kitchen cupboard, and takes it and the brandy bottle with him as he finally flops down on the settee. He sets the bottle and glass down on the coffee table. The glass is the last of a set of Old Fashioneds that he and Val were given as a wedding present. He doesn’t have many possessions left from his old life. There was a massive clean-out before the house was sold. He let Lyn take her pick from all of it, and the rest was put in storage to be sold off later. He kept a few things, special things that he’d never consider parting with, but all the kitchen stuff went. All but this glass. It was his constant companion that first year. It, and a bottle of brandy.

Nine years. On Monday it will be exactly nine years since he lost Val.

His hand shakes as he sloshes a large measure of brandy into the glass. He’s shivering with cold. That little heater is worse than useless.

He picks up the glass, and considers it. He should just go to bed right now. He’s certainly tired enough. He doesn’t move, though. He sets the glass back down on the table, and doesn’t move some more. He’s not sure how long he sits there, but it seems like a long time.

When at last he does get up, he takes the glass with him. And the bottle.

  


* * *

  
Something doesn’t add up.

Hathaway’s sure of that even before he takes his leave of his esteemed, and less than completely helpful, Cornish colleagues. There’s something missing, something that they’re just not seeing. Crispin Davis didn’t just rush down to Cornwall on a whim. Hathaway’s sure of that, too. He wasn’t the sort to do anything on a whim; everyone they’ve spoken to has agreed on that point. Crispin Davis was methodical by nature and, more than anything else, Crispin Davis was a man of routine. His neighbour, Mrs Gemma Jarrett, claimed that “You could set your watch by him.” He had never been married and, as far as Hathaway has been able to determine, had no surviving close family members. There were several acquaintances, including Dave Kendall, the proprietor of the eponymous café on South Parade where Davis went for lunch most days, but no real friends. No apparent enemies of any kind, either. There was some sort of private income, an annuity. Hathaway has looked into that, too. Davis had been a history teacher in a local comprehensive until an uncle had died some years earlier and left him both the house in Summertown and the income. While not outrageously wealthy, he had been able to give up gainful employment, live in comfort and spend his days working on a book about Oxford during the Civil War – fiction rather than history, from what Hathaway has seen of the draft. And not terribly good fiction, at that. He’d been working on it for at least five years with no end in sight, so far as anyone could tell.

He hated travel, disliked going out of Oxford for any reason. It appears that he didn’t plan the trip to Cornwall in advance. Nothing was pre-booked. Even the train ticket had been bought at the station the day he left – the sort of extravagance that, everyone said, was quite as out of character as the break in routine, despite the fact that he could easily afford it.

All in all, there’s really very little else to say about Crispin Davis. His was a quiet life, largely unremarkable and taking up little space. And yet there was something in it, hiding somewhere in that list of facts, that provoked someone, person or persons unknown, to snuff out that life with a violence that was at odds with the harmless way in which it had (apparently) been lived.

The trip to Cornwall must hold the answer, Hathaway’s almost certain. It’s the only thing that stands out from all the rest. But how does it fit in? Where’s the link? Crispin Davis took the train down to Penzance for a reason, but after three days tracing his movements there, Hathaway’s still no closer to determining what that reason might be. Davis had never been to Penzance – or Cornwall – before and had no family or other previous connections anywhere in the vicinity. There was nothing at all, apparently, that would oblige him to go there. Except that he had – and then been found back in Oxfordshire four days later, lying across an old grave in Taynton churchyard with his head bashed in and his hands cut off.

Davis’s trip to Cornwall can’t be a coincidence. Hathaway doesn’t believe in coincidences, particularly not when there’s a dead body involved.

Something doesn’t add up.

Hathaway’s still sure of that six hours, eight minutes, 267 miles, three significant traffic jams, countless insignificant traffic jams, four cigarettes, and one cup of the most disgusting service station coffee he’s ever tasted later, when he finally pulls up outside his flat.

There’s the shock of hot air against his cheeks as he opens the front door. Hathaway stops to turn the heat down to a slightly less tropical temperature, then he’s pulling off his tie in relief. Some days it ends up feeling a little too like a noose - or like Porphyria’s hair – around his neck for his comfort. Mostly on days like today, when he’s got less than nothing in the way of results to show for all the work he’s put in. He runs a towel over his hair before he gets changed. For all the rain he encountered all through the southwest this afternoon, the greatest concentration seems to be in Oxford. More specifically, here in this street, between his car and the front door. The rain set early in tonight, indeed. He puts on jeans and a t-shirt, slips a hoodie on over the top, and pulls on a pair of old running shoes. He can feel his body relaxing bit by bit as Detective Sergeant Hathaway turns slowly into James.

He rummages through the second-top kitchen drawer for his collection of takeaway menus, and settles on Indian. He phones in the order, garlic naan and ‘beef vindaloo as spicy as you’d have it yourself’. An hour’s wait, they tell him. Unusual for them to take so long. They must be run off their feet. Not surprising, at this time of year.

He gets out his guitar and sits back on the sofa with it, strumming idly for a while before his fingers find the shapes of a familiar chord progression almost of their own volition. Twelve bar blues, the brilliantly simple bedrock on which so much of popular music was built. Not just the blues but-

Hathaway’s hands still. Music. Could that be it? He leaps to his feet, pausing to deposit the guitar carefully back on its stand, and then he rushes to get his laptop. It seems to take an age to boot up, and even longer for the website to load. There it is. The Railway Arms, self-proclaimed ‘Hub of the live music scene in downtown Penzance!”

He’d wondered why Davis had chosen to stay in a hotel in Penzance in preference to just about anywhere else in Cornwall. It seemed far too rough a place to appeal to a man like Davis, and it wasn’t as if he’d spent his days in the town. Every day he’d set off, driving hither and yon in his hired car to visit seemingly every landmark and tourist attraction in Cornwall. Many of them had been closed so late in the year of course. It had all seemed quite pointless. But maybe that was the whole point – or, rather, Davis’s daytime activities weren’t the point at all. Every evening, Davis had returned to the Railway Arms in Penzance. Every evening, he’d dined in the hotel restaurant. And every evening he’d repaired to the hotel bar until late. A routine, and Hathaway has already established that Davis was nothing if not a man of routine. Hathaway has theorised, more than once in the course of the investigation, that Davis had been waiting to meet someone at the hotel, probably in the bar. The only problem with that particular theory was that no one had ever shown. But what if he’d been waiting not to meet someone but to _see_ someone?

Hathaway scrambles for his phone. It takes only a moment to call the manager of the Railway Arms; considerably longer for him to come to the phone. Hathaway bounces on his toes impatiently.

At last a brisk voice at the other end of the line says, “Hello?”

“Mr Barnsley? Detective Sergeant James Hathaway of Oxfordshire Police. We spoke earlier this week, you might recall.”

“I do.” The manager’s voice becomes a lot more cautious the instant Hathaway identifies himself.

“I was wondering if you’d be able to tell me the names of any musical acts that performed at the Railway Arms two weeks ago during the time that Mr Crispin Davis was staying there.”

“I can. And I don’t even need to look it up,” Barnsley says, sounding annoyed now. “That was the week the Graveyard Birds were with us. They shot through early without waiting to be paid in full, and I was left without an act for Saturday night.”

“They played on the Friday night?”

“Oh yes. That was the last we saw of them.”

“Do you know their contact details, or where I might be able to find them?”

“Sorry. If I knew that, I’d be after them like a shot. ”

“I imagine you would,” Hathaway agrees. “No phone number or previous address at all? Maybe a bank account for payments?”

“I’ve got a mobile number. It’s not answering. As for payments, well, we generally deal in cash with the acts that play here.”

I’ll just bet you do, Hathaway thinks, but “Can you give me the mobile number, and tell me their names, at least?” is what he says instead.

“Let’s see. I mainly dealt with their bass player – he doubled as the manager. Simon Banks. And there was Richard something or other, who was the drummer. And Natalie, of course. She was guitar and lead vocals. A great talent, that girl. Can’t remember the other guitarist’s name, sorry.”

Hathaway scribbles down the details. “And that mobile number?”

“I’ll need to look at my paperwork.”

“I’m happy to wait, Mr Barnsley,” Hathaway says, letting a slight warning note creep into his voice. And then he waits, if not exactly happily, while Barnsley goes to retrieve the number.

It doesn’t take long for Barnsley to come to the phone this time. He reads out the number and Hathaway quickly jots it down.

“Thanks,” Hathaway says. “You’ve been a great help. You’ll let me know if you hear anything, or if you find out where any of the members of the group might be contacted?

“Of course, Sergeant. But I don’t like your chances there.”

“Thanks for your time, Mr Barnsley.”

“Good night, Sergeant.”

Hathaway ends the call. He almost smiles: Crispin Davis checked out of the Railway Arms on the Saturday morning, and then was heard of no more. Hathaway’s found the way in, the thread that may just lead him through the labyrinth and out again. He has a feeling that his tie wouldn’t feel quite so tight right now, if he’d still been wearing it.

He calls Lewis next, but gets no answer. Hathaway frowns at the phone when at last the call diverts to voice mail. Lewis’s phone isn’t turned off. Hathaway’s just listened to it ringing and ringing. It isn’t like Lewis not to answer if his phone is turned on, not unless he’s in the middle of something urgent – and how urgent could anything be, at home by himself on a Friday night? Well, maybe, if Doctor Hobson had… No. Lewis had sounded far from well when Hathaway had spoken to him on the phone this afternoon. Not at all in a fit state for socialising. And besides, whatever had been going on, or nearly going on, between Lewis and Hobson had fizzled out months ago. Hathaway is _almost_ positive about that.

Maybe Lewis is in the bath and left the phone out of reach, or simply can’t hear it from the other end of the flat. Neither possibility seems likely, though. There are no doubt plenty of other completely ordinary and entirely innocuous reasons why Lewis might not answer his phone right at this moment. It’s just that none of them is occurring to Hathaway.

Hathaway leaves a message and resolves to try Lewis again in half an hour if he doesn’t call back.

He gets a bottle of pinot noir from the wine rack – New World stuff from Western Australia, but not too bad for all that – and pours himself a generous glass. And then he sits down at the table with the wine and his laptop and prepares to find out all that the World Wide Web can tell him about the Graveyard Birds.

The initial search, somewhat surprisingly, produces quite a number of hits for the Graveyard Birds – or at least more than Hathaway was expecting. The number of them turns out not to make much difference, though. After clicking through from link to link, Hathaway eventually finds himself back where he started, at the band’s singularly unenlightening website, hardly knowing more about the Graveyard Birds than he did before. Oh, he knows about their touring schedule for the middle of last year, and he knows about their repertoire – a bit of rock, a bit of blues, a touch of bluegrass, and even a little funk – but finding out who they are and where they might be right now is clearly going to require a little more digging.

The phone rings and he snatches it up from the table. “Sir! Sorry to bother you.”

“This is the Taste of India,” a voice that is manifestly not Lewis’s replies uncertainly. It’s a female voice, for a start. “We’re calling to let you know that unfortunately our driver’s car has broken down tonight, and so he won’t be able to deliver your order.”

“That’s very unfortunate,” Hathaway says automatically, staring down at the display of his phone. It clearly says that the caller is “Taste of India (decent takeaway)”. He hadn’t even stopped to look before answering.

“And we’d also like to ask if you would be able to come and pick up your food in about twenty minutes.”

“Yes, yes that’s… fine,” Hathaway agrees a trifle distractedly.

“Additionally, we’d like to offer our profuse apologies for the inconvenience caused.”

“No, it’s fine. Really. As it turns out I think I might need to go out, in any case.”

“Thank you for your understanding.”

Hathaway rings off. Barely a second later, he tries calling Lewis again. Still no answer. He terminates the call as it diverts to voicemail, and tries Lewis’s work number instead. It rings half a dozen times before there’s a click and then it starts ringing again. It’s picked up on the second ring this time.

“Desk Sergeant,” says a familiar voice.

“Andy? James Hathaway here.”

“ _Detective_ Sergeant.” Andy Caulfield’s tone is part friendly, part mocking, but more friendly than not. “What can I do for you on this lovely Winter’s evening?”

“I was wondering if anyone could tell me what time my governor left work today. I’ve just got back after being out of town on a case and I’m having a little trouble raising Inspector Lewis on the phone.”

“Ah, you mighty detectives. Can’t even find each other now,” Andy says sorrowfully.  “And yet the lowly uniformed sergeant can come up with the answer without even breaking a sweat.”

“Yes?” says Hathaway.

“Yeah, I saw him go out the door. Would have been a bit after five, I reckon. He didn’t look too good, actually,” Caulfield says, sounding more serious now.

“Thanks a lot, Andy.”

“Any time. What else am I here for but to-”

Hathaway disconnects the call. He glances up at the clock on the wall. It’s just gone a quarter past eight. Andy Caulfield saw Lewis leave work a good three hours ago. Anything could have happened in that time. But of course it probably hasn’t, Hathaway reminds himself.

It’s a five minute drive, if that, to the restaurant. He could wait another fifteen minutes, drive down to collect his order, and then circle around and come back the long way, which would take him right past Lewis’s flat. He could drop in for a moment, let Lewis know that his phone isn’t working properly, and then be on his way again.

Alternatively, he could leave right now and take the long way to the restaurant…

It’s considerably colder outside than it is in his flat, and the rain is coming down heavier than ever. Hathaway pulls his coat closer around himself as he hurries out to his car. He drives off into the night, peering out of the windscreen at streetlights shimmering through the curtain of rain almost as if they’re underwater. It’s oddly pretty, but they’re doing a poor job of lighting the way. Hathaway keeps a careful eye on the road, but the traffic ahead is crawling along in any case. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Come on,” he mutters. The car in front of him pays no heed.

The lights are on in Lewis’s flat; that’s the first thing Hathaway notices. Lewis’s car is parked out front; that’s the second thing Hathaway notices. These facts should be cause for relief.

Hathaway strides up the path and knocks on the front door. He waits as the rain pelts down on his head. After a moment, some of the raindrops join forces and snake down his neck, stealthy and cold.

Hathaway knocks on the door again, louder this time.

Still no answer.

He doesn’t wait this time, but just hammers on the door as hard as he can.

Nothing.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls Lewis’s mobile. He can hear it ringing – both through his own phone’s speaker, and the actual ringtone of Lewis’s phone on the other side of the door.

Hathaway steps back from the door, and considers the placement of the lock. If he’s wrong about this, he’s never going to hear the end of it from Lewis.

He hopes he’s wrong.

And then, after a couple of swift kicks in exactly the right place - right where the latch bolt meets the doorframe - the wood splinters and the door bursts open.

Hathaway rushes inside. The interior of the flat is almost as cold as it is outside. He glances about the living room and kitchen. There’s Lewis’s phone, lying abandoned on the kitchen counter. He mentally catalogues the other items sitting beside it: a bottle of medicine, a strip of tablets, an unopened curry and a bag of salad greens. Over by the sofa, there’s a small heater whirring uselessly on the floor, pushing out a minuscule amount of heat.

There’s no sign of Lewis.

“Sir?” he calls, moving swiftly across the living room to the short hallway. “Are you there, sir? It’s James – James Hathaway.”

There’s no answer.

The bathroom door’s open. He notes in passing that there’s an umbrella lying in the bath. The study door’s closed. He doesn’t bother with it, but goes straight to the bedroom at the end of the hall. He stops in the doorway.

Lewis is lying more or less under the covers, shirt still on but unbuttoned most of the way down, with most of the rest of the clothes he must have been wearing today lying discarded on the bedroom floor. He’s propped up against a couple of haphazardly arranged pillows and his eyes are closed. His cheeks are flushed and his breath is rattling in his chest. He’s also shivering so much that Hathaway can see his legs shaking beneath the covers.

Hathaway swallows hard as he registers these last details.

“Sir?” he says urgently, approaching the bed.

Lewis coughs a couple of times and mutters something, head moving from side to side against the pillow in agitation.

“It’s all right, sir,” Hathaway says, though it quite clearly isn’t all right at all.

And then Hathaway notices the empty glass on the bedside table, and the empty brandy bottle sitting beside it. He lays the back of his hand against Lewis’s forehead; his skin feels hot, but he’s shivering with cold. And apart from the unnaturally heightened colour in his cheeks, his skin looks ashen. Hathaway taps Lewis’s cheeks briskly. “Come on, sir. Wake up,” he tells him.

Lewis mutters something unintelligible, and his shivering increases slightly in intensity.

Fever and shivering, Hathaway recalls, are both symptoms of dangerously low core body temperature, and the body’s primary ways of trying to boost heat. The causes of lowered body temperature are typically things like drinking too much alcohol and simply not keeping warm enough. Of course, fever can also be a symptom of the body trying to fight off a bacterial infection.

Lewis moans, and starts coughing again.

Cursing softly, Hathaway pulls open the wardrobe doors and scans the contents. He drags down a spare duvet from a high shelf and spreads it out over the other bedclothes, taking care to cover Lewis right up to his neck.

“Be right back, sir,” he assures Lewis.

It’s freezing in the living room, and rapidly becoming only moderately less damp than outside, with the door hanging open like that. He pushes the door to as far as it’s willing to go, then grabs a dining chair and pushes it up against the door to keep it in place.

He digs his phone out of his pocket. He considers calling Doctor Hobson, but after a second’s reflection decides that Lewis needs to be attended by a doctor with recent experience of treating the living. He calls 999.

“I need an ambulance,” he says.

Once he’s been assured that an ambulance will be dispatched as soon as possible, Hathaway looks around for the heating controls. He finds them, and isn’t terribly surprised to find that they’re not responding. He grabs the little heater off the floor, tugging hard at the cord until the plug comes free from the socket.

Back in the bedroom, he closes the door behind him and sets up the heater as close to the bed as the cord will allow. Regardless of its proximity, though, he knows it will take too long to warm up this room. The only other available means of warming Lewis right now - and, in fact, the best - is shared body heat. Hathaway kicks off his shoes, and quickly strips down to boxers, t-shirt and socks, and pulls back the covers. It’s awkward, and not at all like sharing a bed with a fully-conscious and willing bedmate. Lewis isn’t in a position to help things along at all, and in fact his constant shivering impedes Hathaway’s initial attempts to position himself. It’s not as though Hathaway is just trying to curl up at his side. He needs to cover as much of Lewis’s body surface as possible with his own. It takes more than a bit of manoeuvring but eventually Hathaway ends up stretched out more or less on top of Lewis, not quite chest to chest - Lewis’s breathing became more laboured when Hathaway tried that at first - but with Hathaway’s arms wound tightly around Lewis, keeping them anchored as closely together as possible as Hathaway’s chafes his hands carefully along Lewis’s arms and back. Their legs are twined together below and Hathaway’s breath is hot against the side of Lewis’s neck.

It’s weird, and weirdly intimate, spread out like this, skin-on-skin with Lewis. Lewis’s legs continue their uncontrollable trembling and Hathaway can feel the hairs on their thighs catch and rub. Their bodies fit together unexpectedly well, like two jigsaw pieces that until this moment hadn’t even seemed to be part of the same puzzle.

“Hathaway?” It’s Lewis’s voice, a little slurred but the question is distinct enough.

Hathaway lifts his head and looks Lewis in the eyes. Light eyes, clear and grey, but it’s hard to focus this close up. His gaze shifts slightly. At this distance, each individual line at the corners of Lewis’s eyes is easy to make out. It would make a fascinating study under other circumstances.

Lewis stares blearily back at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting, sir.”

“Oh.” Lewis appears to consider this for a moment. “Why?”

“You’re not well,” Hathaway tells him gently.

“It’s just this damned cold. Took some cough mixture. Didn’t do much good.” Lewis illustrates the truth of this by turning his head away as a coughing fit takes hold of him. His whole body heaves with it.

“It’s a bit more than a cold, I think,” Hathaway says. Bronchitis, by the sound of things, he adds silently. Possibly pneumonia. And the alcohol almost certainly hasn’t helped. “Sir!”

Lewis looks heavy-eyed. He’s already drifting off again, but his eyelids flutter at Hathaway’s exclamation.

“The brandy! How much brandy did you drink?”

“Had a bit.”

“Yes, we’ve established that. How much?”

“Not much. Don’t usually, but Val… You know. Poured the rest down the sink.”

Hathaway closes his eyes. Of course. It’s not like Lewis to do anything as stupid as combining alcohol with any sort of medication. Not ordinarily. But today’s not an ordinary day. Lewis is ill to the point of delirium, and it’s the sixteenth of December. And that means that Monday will be the nineteenth bloody day of bloody December, and Hathaway’s a bloody idiot for not making the connection until now. He’s got used to Lewis dealing unobtrusively with the pain that this time of the year brings him. Hathaway’s slipped up there and let himself become complacent about that; it matters not at all that Lewis hates to mention the subject even in passing. Hathaway should have known, he should have _seen_ that this year things are different. Lewis invariably gets a trifle snappish the nearer it gets to Christmas, but usually – unlike this week – he’s devoting most of his attention to an investigation and so he just gets on with things. There are almost always plenty of cases for them to deal with around Christmas time. The closer Christmas gets, the more people have a tendency to go a bit nuts. There’s always a higher rate of suicide at this time of year; every police officer knows that. And as for violent crime…

Lewis’s eyes slide closed and his breathing sounds more laboured than ever. The shivering seems to have calmed a bit, at least. The first faint hint of a siren sounds in the distance, drawing closer.

“That sounds like our ride,” Hathaway tells Lewis, but there’s no response. Hathaway disentangles his legs and eases himself out of bed, but gets no response to that, either. He tucks the covers carefully around Lewis, and frowns down at him for a moment. And then he gets on with the task at hand.

It’s only a matter of moments until he’s dressed again. He calls Andy Caulfield first, and requests the assistance of a couple of uniformed officers to secure the front door until a locksmith can see to it. Then he sets about clearing up the detritus in the kitchen.

He’s waiting at the door, coat pulled tight against the chill, when the ambulance stops outside. He gives the paramedics a brief rundown on Lewis’s condition, not forgetting to mention either the brandy or the medication he found on the kitchen counter, as he shows them to the bedroom. They nod in acknowledgement, and get on with it. They’re practised and efficient. Professional. They know exactly what they’re doing. Hathaway keeps careful watch on their every move. At last, they wheel Lewis out of the door on a stretcher and Hathaway follows close on their heels.

The journey to the John Radcliffe is much faster than any of the other trips Hathaway’s made today: ambulances have a knack for clearing a path through even the most stubborn traffic. His phone rings about halfway there. Hathaway glances down at the display. The caller is ‘Taste of India (decent takeaway)’. He answers. Apologises. Accepts their apologies. Engages in a brief verbal tug-of-war about who is the more apologetic. Lets them win. Rings off. He slumps in his seat. The whole conversation feels surreal, conducted as it is from the front seat of an ambulance and considering who the patient is, lying in the back.

The ambulance pulls into the hospital driveway and there’s a flurry of activity as hospital staff and paramedics converge around Lewis’s stretcher. Hathaway feels worse than useless – for about five seconds until someone waves an admission form under his nose. It’s not a detailed form, and Hathaway’s completed most of it by the time they wheel Lewis off to a small side ward off the main Emergency ward.

“Family?” asks the nurse who handed him the clipboard.

“No, he’s my… friend.” Hathaway amends his answer halfway through, because somehow saying that Lewis is his boss makes them both seem a little bit pathetically friendless.

“Ah,” says the nurse. “You know that technically we're not supposed to provide you with any proper details about his condition if you’re not family?” She looks at him speakingly.

Hathaway’s not entirely sure that he knows what she’s not quite saying, but at least he can take care of what she’s actually saying. He gets out his warrant card. “Detective Sergeant James Hathaway, Oxfordshire Police. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me informed.”

“Of course, Sergeant.” She gives him a brief, sympathetic smile, and takes back the clipboard and completed form.

Hathaway slouches in the hard plastic chair opposite the entrance to the ward and waits for the doctor to appear. He doesn’t have to wait all that long before she emerges from the curtains around Lewis’s bed. He supposes that’s a good sign.

Hathaway leaps up as she approaches. “How is he?”

“It’s pneumonia,” the doctor says bluntly, “but Mr Lewis should be all right. In time. We’re starting him off with a broad spectrum antibiotic but we can change it to something more specific if the blood work tells us anything useful. For the moment, we’ve given him something to help him sleep, as well as something for the pain. ”

Hathaway nods. “I thought that was it. When will he be able to go home?”

“Not immediately. We need to get his temperature down first, and deal with some of the other related issues. Bronchitis, a touch of pleurisy, and so on.”

Hathaway nods again. “So… how many days?”

“Provided he responds to treatment as expected, I’d say sometime next week.”

It’s not quite the answer Hathaway was hoping for, but better than he was expecting. “Can I see him now?”

“For a few minutes, yes.”

“Thank you,” Hathaway says.

The doctor nods, and moves on to her next patient.

Lewis is asleep when Hathaway arrives at his bedside, or maybe just right out of it. Hathaway stands there and looks down at Lewis’s face, fidgets, lets his eyes stray down to the mattress. He’s always wondered how anyone could sleep propped up on such a steep incline like this, but probably the angle is important with this sort of illness.

He has to make himself look at Lewis again.

Lewis’s face looks old against the crisp, sterile white of the hospital linen, as though all the vitality and spark, everything that makes Lewis who he is, has drained right out of him. Hathaway, if he’d thought about this moment much at all in advance, had had some semi-formed idea of staying at Lewis’s side until the medical staff kicked him out late tonight. He hadn’t envisaged that the sight of Lewis like this would make him feel… as he does. As if he wants to flee.

There’s a soft touch at his elbow and Hathaway starts and whirls around. A nurse is standing there, an older fellow going grey at the sides.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave in a moment, sir,” the nurse says. “Normal hospital visiting hours don’t apply in Emergency.”

“Yes,” Hathaway says, letting out a long breath.

“Why don’t you come back in the morning? He should have been moved down to the infectious diseases ward by then and so you’ll be able to stay a good while if you want.”

“Yes,” Hathaway says again. He doesn’t protest when the nurse leads him out into the corridor.

He needs to get back to Lewis’s place to collect his car. A taxi is the obvious solution, but on a night like tonight without any notice? He could be waiting here a good long time.

Prevailing on a friend is the only other real option. He could call Laura Hobson. She’s the obvious choice. She’s Lewis’s closest friend in Oxford, apart from Hathaway himself, and right at home coming and going from a hospital.

He calls Danny, the lutenist with the band, instead. Danny never goes to bed early, and this evening proves to be no exception. He’s just finishing his supper when Hathaway calls, and promises to meet him outside Emergency in ten minutes. Now all Hathaway has to do is sit and wait.

His feet take him back to Lewis’s bedside of their own accord. Lewis hasn’t stirred. Hathaway looks down at Lewis’s face. It’s a long, steady look this time. Finally, he leans down, and kisses Lewis chastely on the forehead. Feels self-conscious, all speaking silence and dumb confession. “Good night, sir,” he says, and walks away without a backward look.

The trip back to Lewis’s, and from there to his own flat, passes in a blur. It’s only when he finally comes in the door and sees the restaurant menu sitting on the kitchen counter that he remembers he hasn’t eaten a thing since lunchtime.

He’s not hungry.

He leaves the menu where it is and walks slowly out of the kitchen and across the living room, shrugging out of his coat and kicking off his shoes along the way. By the time he gets to the bathroom he’s shed all his clothes save t-shirt, boxers and socks. He leaves those by the door, and shuts it behind him. He climbs into the shower, slides the screen closed, turns on the water.

Only then does he let go. Only then does he let any of it touch him properly. Everything from this night comes crashing down on him, and he lets it. Embraces it, almost.

The spray rains hot on James’s cheeks, like tears.

  


* * *

  
Everything's confusion for a while. There's a dizzying grey haze at the centre of it all, sending him spinning and falling in an endless void even though he doesn't seem able to move a muscle. There's a constant low-pitched murmur, just loud enough to be endlessly annoying, punctuated by the occasional sudden loud noise or bright light, and snatches of disconnected, unintelligible conversation.

He's getting used to it, or at least becoming resigned to having to put up with it, when everything comes abruptly into focus. There's a brush of lips on his forehead. A disembodied voice somewhere nearby, quietly saying, "Good night, sir." And the sound of footsteps retreating.

No, that's not right. This isn't real. This happened years ago. One of those moments that's branded on the memory forever after. It was "goodbye" not "good night", though, and he was the one saying it. He was the one walking away, too. He was the one leaning down to leave a kiss on Morse's forehead as his body lay cold and dead on the slab in the morgue.

No, that's not right, either. He'd felt those lips on his forehead, just a moment ago. He's sure of that much. And he's still lying here, isn't he? He's not the one walking away this time. So… is he dead, then? He feels strange, not himself at all. Is this what being dead feels like?

No, it can't be. His whole body hurts too much for that. He feels like death warmed up, not death itself.

Lewis opens his eyes, squints into the too-brightly lit room, and wonders why it didn't occur to him to do this before now. His eyes get slowly used to the light and he realises he doesn't know this room at all, but he can identify where it must be. There's a bed to his left, and another beyond it by the wall. This is a hospital ward. Trying to work out the where and how and why of that just makes his head ache worse, though, so he closes his eyes again.

Perhaps he nods off for a while, or else he just dreamed it all, the kiss and the voice and the footsteps as well as the ward itself, because when he opens his eyes again he's in a different room, a smaller room with only the one bed in it, and daylight is creeping in around the edges of the blind.

He tries to move, and only then realises that he's hooked up to a saline drip. It's an effective way of stopping him from getting out of bed and checking himself out of hospital immediately. He tries to push himself up into a slightly less awkward position, and ends up clutching his arm while just about coughing up his lungs. He has to admit that that's also a pretty effective way of keeping him in this bed for the time being.

A stout, middle-aged nurse bustles in - there's really no other term for it - with a small tray of equipment.

"What am I doing here?" Lewis asks as the nurse busies herself taking his blood pressure.

The nurse stops and looks at him. "You've got pneumonia. Didn't they tell you?"

"I don't think I was in any position to be told," Lewis says with a wry grin.

"Someone called an ambulance and they brought you in last evening."

"Someone?"

"I'm not sure who it was. I wasn't on duty at the time. Your wife, maybe?"

Lewis closes his eyes for a long moment as a sudden flash of memory takes hold. "No, it wouldn't have been my wife," he says at last.

"Sorry," says the nurse, and pops a thermometer under his tongue.

So, Lewis thinks, was it Laura… or James?

And then Lewis's day begins in earnest.

He survives having his temperature taken, and his blood pressure, and obediently swallows down the pills the nurse leaves with him. There's more activity out in the corridor now, trolleys moving past and people stopping to talk. He more or less passes breakfast right by, save for a cup of weak, black tea. But then there's the whole saga of getting to the bathroom and back - with assistance, no less! Best not to dwell on that. He sits - slumps, to be completely accurate - in the visitor's chair by the door while they change the sheets on his bed. It's exhausting just watching them.

He's finally back in bed, lying back against a smooth, fresh pillowcase and resting his eyes, when there's a light tap at the door. He opens his eyes, and is not terribly surprised to find Hathaway standing there.

"Good morning." Hathaway looks pale, and there are dark circles under his eyes.

"Are you all right?" Lewis asks, frowning.

"I think I should be asking you that, sir."

"I'm in hospital," Lewis points out testily.

"I know," Hathaway says heavily. He looks almost… stricken.

"Oh, come in and sit down before you fall down, lad," Lewis says. "And then tell me how I got here."

Hathaway does as he's told, and pulls the visitor's chair up beside the bed. "You got here in an ambulance," he says once he's sitting down.

Lewis gives him a hard look.

"After I tried to call you last night and got no answer, I went round to your place and found you passed out on the bed. So I called the ambulance," Hathaway amends.

"Thanks," Lewis says. He suspects there's quite a bit more to it than Hathaway's brief summary, but he leaves it alone for now. He doesn't have the energy for an interrogation.

"You'd do the same for me." Hathaway looks away. He's sprawled loosely in the chair, long legs stretched out in front of him. He looks relaxed, almost, or he would do to someone who doesn't know him well enough to notice the telling little signs that give the lie to that. He can't keep his hands still, for one thing. Even his fingers look twitchy. He's dying for a smoke, no doubt. And maybe a drink, which definitely isn't a good sign at this h-

"You asked me about the brandy!"

"Yes," Hathaway says cautiously.

"Last night. You asked how much I'd drunk. I remember that much. And…" Lewis stares at him. "Did you get into bed with me?"

"The heat wasn't working, your flat felt like the Arctic, and you were shivering so hard I thought you'd do yourself an injury." Hathaway ticks the points off on his fingers one by one. "Of course I did what I could to keep you warm until the ambulance arrived."

Lewis considers that for a moment. "Thanks," he says again. "But just… don't tell Innocent, will you?" They'd never hear the end of it if she found out.

"No, of course not," Hathaway agrees at once, barely suppressing a shudder.

Lewis smiles ruefully. "And, really, thanks. I owe you for this. It's definitely above and beyond the call of duty."

"Don't mention it, sir," Hathaway says, and Lewis can tell that he means that literally. "Oh, while I remember," Hathaway adds, and digs a hand into his pocket. He produces Lewis's phone, and plonks it down on the bedside table. "I haven't called your daughter, or anyone else. Yet. But you'd probably better have this back before they try to call you."

"Thanks," Lewis says, and it's heartfelt. He doesn't want his girl needlessly worried, particularly now, when she's about to give birth at any moment. He'll have to tell her that he won't be able to make it up to Manchester for Christmas; he's not going to let his germs anywhere near her. But that call can wait.

Something else occurs to him then. "Why were you trying to call me? Last night, I mean. There must have been a reason."

Hathaway's eyes light up at that. "Oh! I think I've got a lead on the Crispin Davis murder. It's not much yet, but I think there's a connection between Davis and the band that was playing at the hotel where he was staying in Penzance."

Lewis raises his eyebrows. "Tell me more," he says.

He lies back against the pillows and lets Hathaway's voice wash over him. A faint smile touches his lips. All in all, things could be worse.


End file.
